5 Best Practices to Catapult Your App to the Top of the Charts with Burst Campaigns

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Sisi Todorova is the VP of New Media Solutions for WeQ, is a mobile ad tech company, where she brings tremendous experience in the media industry. Prior to working with WeQ, Sisi was the Senior Director of Strategic Distribution at Glispa Global Group, where she led the publisher management team in Beijing, China and at the company headquarters in Berlin, Germany. Previously, she was also the Head of smartBoost, an app ranking solution, with Trademob.

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With over 5.8 million apps in Google Play and Apple App Stores, app developers face tough competition and visibility is key. Burst campaigns can be the key to top positions in the charts. Here's how you can leverage burst campaigns says, Sisi Todorova, VP, WeQ

Burst campaigns have always been a controversial topic in mobile marketing. They are not a tool that universally applies to every single app and at every single stage of the lifecycle of an app. However, when implemented properly in the marketing mix, burst campaigns can catapult an app to the top of the charts and have a significant impact on user base growth and brand awareness. The reality is that with more than 5.8 million apps in Google Play and Apple App Stores, app developers face tough competition and visibility is key. Burst campaigns can be a golden ticket to those coveted top positions in the charts.

Making a burst campaign successful depends on multiple factors, such as the quality and size of the app, the level of competition in a particular market, penetration of a specific OS and the timing of the burst. Ultimately, burst campaigns involve a personalized strategy that can spur the growth of a newly launched app, or rejuvenate the user base of an existing one to prolong its life cycle. It is important to go for a really customized approach and it is important to understand that whatever has worked for a certain app might not work in the same way for another.

WeQ’s team of burst marketing experts have put together five tips on what to consider once deciding to run a burst campaigns for your mobile app:

Take advantage of the new app store layouts

Gaming and non-gaming apps are split into two different pillars in both the Google Play and Apple Store. This gives you a better chance to improve visibility, as it effectively reduces the numbers of apps you are competing against. In addition to this ranking category split, there is now a bigger focus on showcasing the app, e.g. via app previews that autoplay. This adjustment offers you the opportunity to better engage the organic users that the burst campaign will bring to your app. Captivating the attention of users is extremely important in today's mobile marketing ecosystem. In the US, 51% of users do not download any new apps. (The 2017 US Mobile App Report, Comscore)

When running a burst campaign, you are effectively exposing your app to the population of an entire country, so make sure your app looks polished and amazing, it’s user-friendly and easy to use. Take the time for user testing to optimize the initial experience and UI if users are struggling during the onboarding phase.

The new layout of the top charts in Google Play and Apple Store implies that a more targeted approach is the way to go. Aim for the stars — but in your own universe.

Is one burst enough?

There is no formula that can identify the right number of burst campaigns for your app. There are a lot of variables that need to be taken into consideration when determining whether to incorporate app ranking campaigns in your marketing mix including your app category, mass appeal of your app, user interaction, monetization mechanism and last but not least budget restrictions.

While a burst campaign typically only runs 3-5 days for iOS and 7-14 days for Android, depending on your budget, you should leave at least 1-2 months between consecutive bursts with high-ranking targets to ensure your campaign will be successful and to avoid saturation in the market.

As a rule of thumb, always keep in mind major seasonal events that can have a big impact on your revenues, so it’s a good idea to time your campaigns around these - based on the nature of your app and the audience you want to attract. For instance, Cyber Monday and Black Friday affect shopping apps, the World Cup affects betting and sports apps, and the month of January affects health and fitness apps.

Additionally, evaluate the competitiveness of your app category and examine whether you can position better in comparison to your competitors with a burst campaign. All in all, there is no magic number of bursts - it will really depend on your specific app, budget, and market strategy.

Conclusion

Modern-day marketers can use various tactics and have many tools at their disposal to make their marketing strategy a huge success. There is no one-size-fits-all, so before launching an app or entering an unfamiliar market it is important to look holistically at the bigger picture to get the marketing mix right and ensure that your app can cut through the noise.

A well-planned and executed burst campaign can help to deliver a high ROI, by driving thousands of users within a short time frame and outranking the competition in cluttered app stores. As you may have gathered by our tips, burst campaigns can be tricky to implement, so we advise you to consult an expert to help plan and execute these, at least during initial stages.
An experienced team of mobile advertisers should ideally set and develop a personalized strategy for your app based on their industry intel, localized knowledge and access to state-of-the-art proprietary technology. Burst campaign results can help determine the next steps for your marketing strategy.